The Tuesday news briefing: An at-a-glance survey of some top stories

Highlights from the news file for Tuesday, May 24:

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TRAGICALLY HIP’S DOWNIE WILL TOUR DESPITE CANCER: Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie is determined to “blow people’s minds” with a raucous Canadian tour in the wake of learning he has an incurable brain cancer, his managers said. Band managers Patrick Sambrook and Bernie Breen said doctors have cleared the 52-year-old father of four to hit the road following surgery and treatment for glioblastoma — the most common and aggressive type of tumour to start in the brain. The details of the tour are set to be announced Wednesday.

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FIRE CREWS FROM U.S. TO JOIN FORT MCMURRAY FIGHT:Fire crews from around the world will be joining the fight this week against a massive wildfire burning near Fort McMurray. Senior wildlife manager Chad Morrison said up to 1,000 firefighters will be added to 1,200 already on the ground. About 200 from the United States, including Alaska, are to arrive Wednesday and 280 from South Africa on Sunday. “Being a little bit cooler, we’re able to surge with more firefighters that we can put on the perimeter safely,” Morrison said Tuesday.

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JAPAN’S PM ADDS PRESSURE AFTER MEETING WITH TRUDEAU: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe upped the pressure Tuesday on Justin Trudeau by publicly suggesting his Canadian counterpart’s positions had budged on a pair of prickly international files. Following a bilateral meeting with the visiting Canadian prime minister in Tokyo, Abe read a statement to reporters saying the two leaders shared “serious concern” about the territorial dispute that involved the “building of outposts” in the South China Sea. Abe also said, through an interpreter, that Japan would continue to make efforts to seek early ratification of the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty — “together with Canada.” But Canada’s interpretation of the meeting was somewhat different on those two issues.

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VANCE SAYS MILITARY ACTION IN LIBYA NOT INEVITABLE: Canada’s top general says military intervention in Libya is not inevitable, but he’s actively assessing options so he can advise the government on a possible way forward. Gen. Jonathan Vance, the chief of the defence staff, stressed Tuesday he is not advocating one way or another for Canada to join a possible western military coalition in Libya. Speculation has been rife that a new military intervention will be needed to deal with Islamic militants in Libya. “At this stage right now, I’m not convinced that there’s an inevitable western intervention,” Vance said after a speech in Ottawa.

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NO APPEAL OF SENATOR DUFFY ACQUITTAL: Sen. Mike Duffy’s legal saga is officially over. A spokesman for the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General says Crown prosecutors have decided not to appeal Duffy’s acquittal one month ago. Tuesday was the deadline to file an appeal. Ministry spokesman Brendan Crawley says the Crown decided there is no legal basis for an appeal. Duffy was acquitted in April on 31 criminal charges, including fraud, breach of trust and bribery, stemming from his Senate expenses. At the time, Duffy’s trial judge was critical of the Crown’s case, saying that prosecutors failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Duffy acted unlawfully.

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KILLER’S BACKGROUND TO BE ASSESSED: A judge has agreed to postpone a Halifax murderer’s sentencing pending an assessment of whether his African-Nova Scotian background “played a role” in the crime. Kale Leonard Gabriel’s defence team told a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge Tuesday it is preparing a “cultural assessment” on his racial background. The 27-year-old Gabriel was convicted in February of second-degree murder for the 2010 shooting of Ryan White, who was himself black, in the Mulgrave Park housing project. Defence lawyers say the assessment will examine whether Gabriel’s racial and cultural heritage had a role.

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COURT WON’T TOSS KHADR APPEAL JUDGE: An attempt by Canada’s Omar Khadr to have a judge thrown off his appeal panel has raised important legal questions that U.S. President Barack Obama and Congress should deal with quickly, a court in Washington has ruled. Nevertheless, the D.C. Circuit said it was not prepared at this time to grant the former Guantanamo Bay inmate’s request. At issue is Khadr’s call to have the court toss presiding Judge William (Bill) Pollard from the panel hearing his appeal of his war crimes conviction. The appeal over which Pollard resides relates to Khadr’s conviction by a widely condemned military commission in Guantanamo Bay in October 2010. Khadr pleaded guilty to five war crimes he was accused of committing as a 15-year-old in Afghanistan in 2002.

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CANADIAN EGYPTAIR VICTIM WAS ON TRIP SEEING FAMILY:A surprise family reunion ended in tragedy when a Canadian man who had flown out to join the festivities was later killed in the mysterious EgyptAir crash. Medhat Tanious of Toronto was one of two Canadians to die when Flight 804 plunged into the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday en route from Paris to Cairo. His daughter Merna said her father had flown to France to surprise his youngest sister, who lived in Australia and who was meeting other family members in Paris. He was en route to Cairo to visit his in-laws at the time of the crash, she added. “He loved unconditionally, and he had an unbelievable ability to forgive all people that did him wrong,” Merna Tanious said.

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BODYPARTS FROM EGYPTAIR SHOW SIGNS OF BURNS: Body parts recovered from the crash of EgyptAir Flight 804 showed signs of burns and were so small that they suggested the jet was brought down by an explosion, a member of the team examining the remains said Tuesday. But the idea of a blast was promptly dismissed by the head of Egypt’s forensic agency as “baseless” speculation. The cause of Thursday’s crash of the EgyptAir jet flying from Paris to Cairo that killed all 66 people aboard still has not been determined.

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COMING SOON … MORE ROOM FOR SOME TWEETS: Twitter is making some big changes, at least in the context of 140 characters or fewer. The social media service said Tuesday that in coming months, photos, videos and other media won’t count toward Twitter’s 140-character limit. Now, for example, when a user posts a photo, it counts for about 24 characters. That means slightly more wordy tweets are on the way. The change, announced Tuesday, is yet another attempt by the San Francisco company to make its messaging service easier to use, and to attract new users.Twitter did not, as many had speculated in recent months, abolish its character limit.

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